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What a day...

What a day on the dog front. I'm at a conference for a few days in the city and the dogs are staying at Barry's during the day. We've been fighting hard to bring Heidi out of this latest pancreatic attack, and it's been touch and go. I honestly wasn't sure if she'd be making the trip back home with me tomorrow. And Bussy has been showing all the symptoms of Cushings so he had an ultrasound yesterday, and we were going to do the ACTH Stim test today, depending on what the U/S showed.

So I'm in the first session of the conference day, when my cell shows a call from Barry's. They called to let me know that they weren't going to do any tests until they'd had a chance to discuss the U/S in person. This is never a good thing, in my experience. So I go in for 5:15. And it's not good. Not immediately fatal, but not good.

The radiologist said while there may or may not be changes to the adrenal gland for the Cushings, the U/S showed that his liver is huge, and is covered in nodules / tumours which may or may not be benign. We didn't discuss doing a biopsy because his gallbladder is so full of sludge that it's lost all motility, and is in danger of rupturing if we can't get it sorted. So he's on urso and Aventi C liver (I have both at home because Heidi's on them). And of course low fat food (which works out ok, since I've just finished his Rayne bag and just bought a full low fat bag for Heidi, except that she's now decided that she won't eat kibble but is eating low fat meat instead.

Then to add insult to injury, when they were trying to get blood to recheck Heidi's pancreas numbers, she freaked out and in the kerfuffle, got a needle stick in the eye. OUCH!!! the girls felt SO bad!!! So now she's on 2 kinds of eye drops for a week, plus antibiotics. So not good, but no one's fault. stilll....

Barry and I had a long talk yesterday when I went in to pick them up. He is such a wonderful man, and an awesome vet. I loved Laura, as you know, but I'm SO glad I moved to Barry...he's just as great without the added personal friend complication.

He's hopeful that the urso will get the sludge moving, and we're going to do a recheck ultrasound in 4 weeks. and of course, if it ruptures in the meantime, it'll be an emergency call. that THAT doesn't happen. (I must say Bussy is not acting like a sick and possibly dying dog...he's as perky and barky and goofy and loving as ever. ) As for the liver, we discussed doing a biopsy; one of the things I love best with him is he lays out all the options, and you have a sense of what he'd do if it was his dog, but he never pushes one decision or another. His take on the biopsy is that while it would be done by needle (either an aspirate or a core sample, which has a high risk of causing internal bleeding) and not by cutting into the abdomen, the results are often false because you need to make sure that you've actually gone into one of the nodules and that's not always where you land. The bottom line is that if it is metastatic cancer, it's come from somewhere else (and the radiologist was strongly suspicious that this was the case) there's nothing to be done except palliative care, and if it isn't then we treat to support the liver function as much as possible. My friend Janey always says re: doing a test...will the results change the course of treatment? If not, as in this case, especially if it's invasive as this would be, is it worth putting the dog through it. I don't think it is, so we're not biopsying (if that is a word ). Instead we'll recheck in 4 weeks and see where we're at. In the meantime, I'm just going to give him all the loving there is and enjoy his company.

As for Heidi's eye, he took a really good look at it and it's doing great...I don't think the needle went in very far. That poor tech, she's new, and REALLY upset about this. Poor kid. Shit happens...not happy that it did, but it really wasn't anyone's fault. So she's only got to be on the atropine (pain med that makes them froth at the mouth...scared the poop out of me the first time ) for today and tomorrow, and we'll finish the other one and the antibiotics for the full week. All good.

any ongoing rayz for the two of them would be greatly appreciated. it's going to be a long four weeks!

I second the "is it going to change the course of treatment?" With Pebbles, we knew about what was wrong and that it was advanced and minimally treatable so never did any more testing. We just took what time we got and kept her as happy and comfortable as we could.

He didn't say. But Barry was suspicious of a bladder tumour. I don't suppose it really matters...and of course, it may not be cancer at all. We should have a better idea in a month after the recheck. If it hasn't grown, then it probably isn't.